What is Self Esteem and How Does it Affect You?

There are many things that tend to affect our day to day lives, but none so important at self esteem. What is self esteem? How does it impact your life on a daily basis? Those who have enough of it won’t see a problem, but those who have far too little self esteem will need to find a way to work through their problems, or risk living a severely reduced life.

What is Self Esteem?

This is a relatively new concept, but it is quite real. Self esteem is a mental condition that integrates itself into every facet and corner of our lives. The way it works is actually quite simple. As it turns out, in order to supplement our own mental health we need:

Approval from Ourselves

Approval from Others

If others do not approve of you, there is a chance that you will stop approving of yourself, and when this happens you will lose the ability to perform certain tasks. For example, you might have trouble speaking to people in a public setting for fear that others will hear and laugh at the things you are saying. You will feel that none of your own ideas are legitimate, and you may choose someone else as a role model. This is precisely how people become followers rather than leaders, and you do not want to fall into this trap.

Once you fall into the category of having low self esteem you will find it very hard to speak in public, and this is the root of social anxiety.

Raising Self Esteem

There are many who will see a psychologist or even a psychiatrist to help raise their self esteem, and these are great things to do, however there are some things that you can do for yourself. First of all, you need to get down to the root of the problem. Why do you have low self esteem? What is causing it? There could be a few different things, but you need to make sure that you are not surrounded by people who are purposefully bringing you down. This can become a huge problem in the average person’s life, believe it or not. There are many people who can only raise their own self esteem if they are tearing another person down, so try to think about the people you have surrounded yourself with. Can you think of any instance where one of your friends has repeatedly insulted you? Did it bother you? Did you laugh it off? If you felt uncomfortable, then you may have just found your problem.

If you find that you have issue with one of your friends, maybe you could talk to them about it, and in the worst case scenario, try hanging around a different group of people. This might be difficult at first, but if it raises your self esteem then it will be well worth it.

As you can see, self esteem, and asking ‘what is self esteem, is very important, and it is vital that you find a way to increase yours. By doing so you will be giving yourself a fighting chance, and the ability to accomplish the things you truly want in life.